Scintilating Literacy

I was editing a story last night and came across a paragraph that didn’t feel right. I couldn’t put my finger on it but something about it made an alarm go off in my head. I ran it past my wife, who stopped me midway through: “You’re just telling, you’re not showing.”

Of course. But that usually isn’t a problem for me. First, if you don’t know what I am talking about, you need to head to a site such as: Show Don’t Tell

Now we have two ways of looking at show don’t tell. The first is to avoid flat out TELLING the reader the hero is in to sports by SHOWING him perform a run up and fake bowl. Or swing an imaginary bat or racquet. Look around if you don’t believe me; everyone imitates their heroes.

But what if everything is already action? How do you ‘show don’t tell’ action? This is what stumped me. I went to: My Writers Circle to ask for some guidance.  A few of us talked it over.  What was missing was the ‘heart’.  That was what had caught my attention at the beginning.  No hear, just action of two people that might as well have been robots for all the emotion they were producing.

Lets look at the scene:

“Jeff grimaced as she let go, his mind already on that flaw in his calculations.
Swanson winked and stepped out.  Jeff slid to the floor as the door closed.  Swanson was so perfect, but he was powerless while Alice still owned his heart.
He dropped his head to his hands.”

Ok, so it is like this: Jeff does something, Swan does something, Jeff does something else.

Boring!

So how do we make it better?

Well first, it is hard to get a rhythm with Swan interrupting the Jeff action, so we should probably move her to the beginning and get her out of the way so we can concentrate on the thoughts of Jeff.

Now, we have Jeff thinking a lot of “was’s”   If you say something was something else, that is telling.  So we need to get rid of those pesky was’s.

Next, we need to think about the emotions properly.  Jeff is pretty much smitten with Swan, but he isn’t over Alice, the lady who he proposed to but who later walked away.  Right now, thoughts of his work is far away.  Instead he is going to upset at his own cowardice for not taking his chance with Swan.

So lets take a final look at the scene:

“She let go, winked and stepped out.

He grimaced and slid to the floor.  He sighed and his shoulders sagged.  Swanson.  Perfect.  The ache in his heart kept him silent though.  Why couldn’t he just forget Alice?

He dropped his head to his hands.”

Well now I havent actually said that Alice owns his heart, but I think it is still pretty clear.  You see his reaction to Swan leaving: Defeat.  His thoughts are fragmentary, like his mental state: “Swanson.  Perfect.”

 Well it isn’t perfection, but it’s on the right track.  I’ll look at it again on the next edit.

I just finished an article which i posted at my hubpage website. It can be viewed at: http://hubpages.com/hub/Exam_Survival. 

Anyone who has to face exams might be interested.   It just has a few things  I picked up from my way-too-many-years at university

It’s the weekend and it’s raining.  Finally!  I fixed the leaking roof last month and have been waiting all this time to see if the repairs had actually worked.  So far so good though. . .

Like most writers, I have a few projects on the go.  I have a story I am currently pedaling around the science fiction short story market.  I have another one that needs a final edit before it is also out the door.  I have a novella in the final stages before handing it into the team leader of the project.  I have a novel sitting there, waiting for attention, but not having received any in the last few years.

And then I have my fan fiction, and it is probably the writing I enjoy the most.  It doesn’t earn me any money, but it is set in the universe of the computer game ‘Elite’, a world I am, embarrassed to say, very familiar with.  There are a group of us who work together on a single story, taking turns to write parts from the point of view of our own characters.  Some of  the faithful readers then compile the stories where they are posted and make snazzy looking pdf’s.  They can be found at http://www.frontierastro.co.uk/FEU/feu.html.

It isn’t my flashiest writing, but it flows easily and after slogging it out on a hard story, its nice to relax and just put out a small chapter of fan fiction.  Check it out if you are into grand adventure in science fiction.

Hello everyone and welcome to the edge.  After this, it’s all go.  We’ll never be going back again.  There is one direction and one goal: Total domination of the writers market.

On the journey, I’ll cover writing techniques and methods and what is happening in the writing world.  Feel free to join me on this quest.